


Deep Down

by Tierfal



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Friendship, Gen, General
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-20
Updated: 2010-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 10:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/64336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deep down, she knows an awful lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deep Down

**Author's Note:**

> Sorta-spoilers through 3.13.

Martha loves it.

She just _loves_ it—the madness; the motion; the manic explanations, bylines for an imminent destruction that never quite comes. It's terrifying, and it's thrilling, and she doesn't _like_ it, not when she's thinking straight, but she _loves_ every breathless little moment of every wild day.

And she loves him, the Doctor, who is as driven and enthralled as she is no matter how many times he's seen it all; the Doctor, who is so different and yet so simple, so brilliant and so carefully, willfully blind; the Doctor, who is what he does, who makes intensity his profession and mortal peril the best occupational perk in so-much-more-than-the-world.

Not much of a pension plan, of course, but you can't have everything.

He's like that universe, though—depthless and unfathomable; so beautiful he shines, so dangerous he gleams. He's ancient like it, in the tilted smiles and practiced grace, but so is he a nebula, as bright and hopeful as any wide-eyed newborn in the whole of this outrageous oblivion. He fits into it so well that she can't tell which is an extension of the other, and it doesn't seem to matter anymore.

He reminds her of those clips from old Western melodramas—of the stagecoach thundering skyward up the mountain path. It's stupid; it's deadly, but somehow they're not dead; somebody up there's holding out a hand. Her blood's flooding with adrenaline, and what should be screams turn into laughter, and they're too focused on what's waiting at the peak to wonder if they'll even make it there as they careen around another curve, gravel spitting from beneath the wheels.

Even when it's horrific, even when it's a nightmare, she loves it, deep down, deep enough. She went into medicine hoping to save lives, but now, only now, has she realized what it means. Only now does she understand what a life _is_, what's encapsulated inside the fragile skin of a single human being. Only now has she seen it lost and won and risked for nothing and for everything, and only now does every moment linger, warm and tangy, just behind her lips. Only now does she know how precious every flavor proves to be.

Deep down, where she loves it at its worst, she knows she'll leave him someday, maybe someday soon. She can't pin him down, and she almost doesn't want to.

_What did butterflies ever do to you?_

Deep down, she knows how he respects her intelligence, admires her courage, and appreciates her company, and deep down, she thinks that that might be enough. Deep down, she knows she'll find someone, someone human and complete, who will have the spark without the sting of smoke. Deep down, she knows she'll find someone else with the whole universe in his eyes, someone who hasn't got the black hole aftertaste.

She's a doctor, too, after all—or near enough. She knows all about addiction.

She loves it, and she'll let it go, and somehow, it'll be okay.

Deep down, she knows she'll be one of the lucky ones.


End file.
